Tag Archives: Teresa Blackmon

When he dies, I want a black-topped table,
one some sophomore used for biology experiments.
The smell of formaldehyde to stifle me.
I want safety glasses so I can see
all that’s there before me.
I will take the T-pins and hold this old body down.
I have waited all my life to see what lies beneath
this skin, what holds these bones together, what words
unsaid might spill freely from his speechless tongue.
I need no partner for this. I will stand over him; I will
have him where I want him. He will be mum; he will
listen now.
I do not want to see the blue eyes. I want empty
sockets that I can dig into. I want dumb lips and ears,
no foul-fake terms of endearment.
I want to fit my fat fleshy fingers into
the sticks of his hands. I want his crunchy knuckles
to beat upon mine. I need that music, the percussion
of nothingness.
I want to pick up his skull and hold it in my hands.
I want to look at it in wonder, rattle it—
The parts that worked his heart, his judgment,
His wayward feet.
His grey matter will not be fleshy like the summer’s watermelon;
it will be rotten, like the fall.
I want to open his empty mouth and see what fed him,
what satisfied his soul, what stuck to the roof of his mouth,
I want to cut out the kneecaps, smooth them out like worn pebbles
and carry them in my pockets. I want to touch them
when I reach for coins or grocery lists. I want them there,
immovable, depending on me to get from one place to another.
I want to paint his rib cage blue for town sparrows
that can fly only as far as the frame lets them.
One by one I’ll crack the bones
and free them. They will flutter past his lungs and heart
while I watch.

The Blue Top — 1960

Outside the Blue Top service station on the corner of Main,
middle-aged men balance on empty cola crates,
sit there hunched over, elbows to knees, work-stained hands full of chins.
Hats and caps tilted ever-which-a-way, fit heads all full of a day’s work
or next week’s intentions.
Stained fingers flick burned-out butts like fireflies in the night air
as Camels and Lucky Strikes send smoke in circles of angry clouds.
Old timers spit with the accuracy of rain.
Those that can, whistle, and every one of them snorts and coughs and reaches
for soiled handkerchiefs in pockets filled with case knives and loose change.
Their conversation rarely varies, only when the weather does.
Never enough or too much, rain, wind, heat.
They brag about garden plots and tobacco crops, their new mule,
their old Chevy. Their voices buzz and nag like mosquitoes;
fibs and exaggerations punctuate their chatter, a steady beat.
It’s as if they’re keeping score—who works the hardest, catches the biggest,
remembers the most, or finishes first.
Their stories play like songs we love to hate.
About closing time, they ante up.
Released coins sound like dinner bells as they fall into the fat red Coke machine
next to windshield wipers, motor oil and maps.
Pulling Cokes—
checking thick bottle bottoms for their origin, making small bets they can afford.
They pull their drink from the metal cocoon, walk away as nonchalant as cats at rest,
and check their luck as if it doesn’t matter. First one shouts “Raleigh,” a sure loser,
and then “Pittsburgh,” “Chicago,” a Fayetteville or two.
The farther away the better—distance wins the jackpot,
five or six case quarters and a palm-spread of nickels and dimes.
Arguing over mileage and geography a spell, they put their crates away
and head home, just down the street a block or two.

Teresa McLamb Blackmon is a retired Media/Technology Coordinator, high school English teacher and Yearbook Journalism adviser. She graduated from NCSU in 1984 with a MA in English and is an avid Wolfpack fan. She graduated in 1995 from North Carolina Central University with an MLS. Teresa lives on a farm near Benson with her four-legged babies, including dogs, miniature donkeys, horses, Brahma bulls, goats, and sheep. Her writing is an attempt to capture those people and places around Johnston County who shaped her life and her drive to create poetry. She has had poems published in Toasted Cheese, Absinthe, The News & Observer, Poet Lore, Cellar 101 Anthology and various local newspapers and community publications. Email: teachasso[at]aol.com

She fishes for a living,
finds her wallowed spot on the pond dam,
squirms her legs to the place
they fit down the bank.
She sits right on the edge, a little sprite,
as if the pond is there because of her.
With her a cane pole, catawba worms, and
resolve as big as any yellow cat she’ll catch.

We look out our comfortable window and wonder
how she stays put, hooking bass and bream
one after another,
breaking her line, repairing it,
sipping ice water from a quart jar
in a cooler shared with chilled bait.
She just waits for the nibble, the bite—
no worry that one might get away.
There is a reckoning. Some are baited, some
turn away. Only a few will be fit to keep.
She fishes for a living, throws the line as far
as she can and holds onto it,
satisfied with the pull that keeps her alive.

Teresa McLamb Blackmon is a Media/Technology Coordinator in North Carolina. Earlier in her career, she taught high school English and Yearbook Journalism. She graduated from NCSU in 1984 with a MA in English and is an avid Wolfpack fan. Teresa lives on a farm with her husband and their four-legged babies, including dogs, miniature donkeys, horses, Brahma bulls, goats, and sheep. Her writing is an attempt to capture people and places who shaped her life and her drive to create poetry. She has had poems published in Absinthe, The News & Observer and various local newspapers and community publications. E-mail: teachasso[at]aol.com